CIRA Welcomes 2014 REIDS Cohort in June

On Monday, June 2, the Research Education Institute for Diverse Scholars (REIDS) program will welcome six new and four returning Fellows to its 2014 Summer Institute. This is the fourth cohort of REIDS fellows since the program began in 2011 and it is the most geographically diverse thanks in large part to the REIDS alumni who serve as its best ambassadors. It also marks the first time REIDS fellows plan to develop NIMH–funded pilot projects that investigate interventions designed to decrease cervical cancer in women with HIV, retention in HIV care for people aged 50 and older and African American father-son sexual communication and its impact on adolescent males' sexual risk behavior, among other research studies.

The program was designed to meet the challenges and barriers to advancement experienced by groups who are underrepresented in the field of HIV research. The experimental learning component of REIDS will provide opportunities for each fellow to develop skills necessary to engage in community-based research partnerships and advance HIV inequalities research.

2014-2016 REIDS Fellows:

Dr. Moctezuma Garcia, Postdoctoral Teaching Associate in Social Work at Central Michigan University, will be working on a pilot project developing a structural-level HIV intervention for Latinos to increase awareness of HIV transmission and to educate the community on supporting others to get tested and receive proper treatment.

Dr. Allyssa Harris, Assistant Professor at William F. Connell School of Nursing, Boston College, will be working on a pilot project looking at African American father son sexual communication and the impact on adolescent males’ sexual risk behavior.

Dr. Crystal Chapman Lambert, Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing, will be working on a proposed pilot project developing and testing interventions aimed at decreasing cervical cancer in women with HIV. This project will explore and identify factors (social, behavioral and environmental) that contribute to high risk of cervical cancer in this population.

Dr. Chinekwu Obidoa, Assistant Professor of Global Health at Mercer University, will be working on a proposed pilot project assessing the role played by social determinants of health disparities in shaping the distribution of HIV/AIDS in Macon, GA.

Oleksandr Dubov, Pre-doctoral REIDS Fellow, will be working on a proposed pilot project looking at strategies that would help researchers increase uptake and adherence to PrEP, targeting MSM recreational drug users in Ukraine.